King For A Day
by JukiaBear
Summary: A Medusa X Stein pairing. Stein is The Prisoner, and Medusa is the queen without a King. What she offers him is plenty, but what she does to him is worse than anything Stein himself could imagine. Living inside a nightmare, the man is offered no salvation and is reduced to something that even Medusa may not want.
1. Chapter 1

Introduction:

A series of haggard gasps from a feverish nightmare destroyed the stitched house's quiet, melancholy atmosphere as the frightened man shot himself upright into a siting position. Ever since he had killed her, heard her offer and those... words of unrequited love, he had tried to calm himself through sleep. Which was a mistake. He had nightmares of her. No, not quite nightmares, they were pleasant fantasies, but Stein was used to thin sleeps without memorable dreams.

He knew that if he closed his eyes again, he would dream of her coy words and bedroom gold eyes as she seemed to stare straight into your soul. But the hallucinations he had of her were quite worse and too realistic. Medusa was a beast, a loveless animal bent on her sadistic ways. And the witch seemed so alive, so /there/ that Stein almost ached to tell her: "I love you! Just please, leave me alone or take me with you!"

But the professor would never succumb to such a notion. It was all in his head. Yet, reality was what thrived inside your skull. Stein knew that if he said he could fly, and believed he could fly, and one other person thought the same, then that would become his reality. So, were the hallucinations of the snake witch really his reality or just hallucinations? The man pondered this thoughtfully, quite engrossed in this philosophical experiment as he battled between the two sides.

"Don't hurt your head, Professor." The seductive voice of his (imaginary?) Medusa whispered, sitting at the end of his bed with one leg crossed. "You aren't feeling well tonight," The blonde mused, looking upward as if she were in deep thought. "More bad dreams?" Her gold gaze met his green ones and Stein closed his eyes, trying to grope for his glasses, not wanting to answer this... this... visionary impediment.

"You have no idea," The man muttered, to himself or to the witch, he did not know. If the witch was his imagination then did that mean he was talking to himself?

"Oh, poor, poor Stein." It (she?) cooed, getting off the bed and walking slowly towards him, swinging her hips as she did so. Her pale hand reached out and stroked his jaw, mothering him. Stein felt himself tense up at the action, and repressed a shiver. He couldn't deny though that her touch felt wonderful and real and full... as if she were really there. But she wasn't, because Stein killed her.

"You're dead, y'know." The man told it (her?). She (it?) regarded the man monotonously, and smiled. That old coy smile of hers (it?). "Am I?" It (she?) asked almost with childlike innocence.

"But I'm right here." She (it?) added, and Stein frowned. She-it?- had a point.

"You just appeared out of nowhere, you're just a figment of my imagination." The meister offered lamely, not believing himself or this being in front of him anymore.

"Oh, Stein, how... childishly said. That's no way for a man of science to speak, now is it?" The man only shrugged in reply so she (it?) continued: "Besides, I just touched you, didn't I? Didn't you feel it? Or has your skin gone numb?" It-she?- had a point, Stein agreed, but nevertheless he shook his head. He had to refuse this being, or... or what?

"I'm going insane... just leave me alone." It was true. It was not just the madness that was harassing his mind: it was the thought of this witch. The twisting words and deceitful nightmares of love and lust and-

"I can't leave you alone, Stein. You and I are forever bounded through fate. We're together, we'll be together for forever." The witch whispered. Then she embraced the man, letting his head rest against her chest as her arms drew him closer. "Oh. Stein," She murmured, as if in a certain type of pleasure. "I love you." The gray haired man was quiet, as he thought all of this over. She was in love with him.

"You can't love someone who doesn't love you back, Medusa." Stein muttered in reply, but as the witch stroked his hair, the man became less tensed and softened.

"Shh~" Medusa (it? her? him?) shushed, stroking his head, closing her eyes. Suddenly, Stein broke. Not his sanity, but perhaps his self control. The Professor snuggled his head closer to her bosom, filled with warmth and care and was _real_. Yes, the snake witch was real. She was real! Oh, god, he had wanted her to be real for so long and now she was real.

"Medusa!" He cried, "please, don't leave me here. I need you." It would be the closest he would ever come to saying the words: 'I love you'. Yet, it was all that Medusa needed to hear.

"Don't worry, Stein, I'll never leave you again~"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One:

Reality Is What You Define

It had been a week since Stein had accepted Medusa. He knew that his sanity was momentarily spared. He knew he either had to live completely without her or completely with her, and he had chosen the latter. The meister tried to not think about those two past choices: because if he did then he was apt to wonder which was wrong and which was right. Perhaps there was no right one, but one had to be less wrong, right? However, Stein couldn't deceive himself with the thought that Medusa was harmful. Because, she wasn't. She wasn't some venomous snake, trying to sink her translucent fangs into his skin and destroy his body. Medusa had been teaching him, helping him, saving him. She had stopped his madness, and began making him feel human. No, Stein had always felt human, but he felt distance. He could not enjoy things that others seemed to enjoy, seemed to be addicted to.

In the confines of his house, Medusa and Stein talked and experimented and spent time together. Like partners of science, comrades... friends? Although sometimes it had been hard to comprehend her ideas. Stein never looked inward, he didn't consider himself a man of action, but he was a man of harsh reality. He had little to no imagination, memorized everything as if it were the answer, and experimented. He needed answers. He wanted answers. But not about himself, about the world around him. And in some ways, he envied Medusa for so easily doing any experiment she wanted; her lack of morals.

'You moral-less woman,' Stein had told her only a few nights ago, as she suggested they lay in bed together and talk in quiet whispers. Stein found the idea ridiculous but he needed to hear more of her intriguing discoveries. The witch had only laughed at his monotone shock. 'I cannot disagree with you there, Professor,' was her reply. They had spoken more and then Medusa suggested something to calm the doctor. She wanted to reproduce. Well, she called it something else: "make love".

Stein felt even that term to be absurd and inquired why she would use such a lowly expression beneath her knowledge. She told him although she had her medical degrees, she was still a woman, and women preferred the term. Stein wasn't a man of laughter, but if he were, he would have busted a nut. The act was only to reproduce, and that would be what it should be for. His weapon partner, Spirit Albarn, was his main example of the cons of reproducing. You got offspring that became a feminist, lost a "significant other", and then did the act of reproduction more and did weird things- VERY weird things. Childishly, the professor wondered if doing it would make him like Spirit.

After it was done, the witch left him. It was near time for him to prepare for his day. Doing it had made him feel like an animal, but he understood why all the idiots did it: a sense of satisfaction he couldn't even get from his dissecting calmed his body to such an extreme the professor would call himself content at that time. But he didn't want to do it again. Never again would he do it.

"Professor Stein?" A curious voice interrupted his reverie about all that had been happening in the past week. The doctor turned around, realizing that he had been staring at the chalk board for quite an extended length of time.

"Hm?" He grunted, looking at Maka Albarn. She looked at him with worried green eyes.

"I just had a question..." She trailed off, losing her tongue when the time had come to ask but a simple thing. Stein's feature seemed to brighten before her eyes, and the teacher pulled out a packet of his cigarettes; lighting them and then taking a long drag.

"Go ahead," Stein prompted her to continue and Maka smiled. Perhaps his behavior was nothing to worry about, at least for the moment he was himself.

xxx

"Stein," The meister turned his head to look at the witch. She was sitting on his desk, looking through papers. "People are being suspicious of how you've been acting." The professor was about to just nod his head and continue on with his work, lately he had been into researching blood, but then paused and thought about what she said. How would Medusa know what others were thinking? That he seemed suspicious? He'd only been home or at Shibusen, maybe walking the streets but those were always when the crowds were gone. More importantly, where did Medusa go when she left him every night? Why was she telling him what to do, what to be careful of. Why was he listening to her? Using one finger to slid his spectacles up his nose further, Professor Stein stood up at his full height and confronted the witch.

"And how," His voice was blatant yet defiant, "exactly would you know that?" Medusa didn't look abashed at his question, merely she continued reading the papers. Minutes passed and the witch continued reading the same paper. Wasn't she a fast reader? She should have been finished with it, it was just a minor data table of his hypothesis and some research factoids. "Answer me, Medusa." And then, the professor noticed it. The woman before him was completely still. No expansion of the lungs to show she was breathing... not a blink or a twitch. Even her equilibrium was completely still and Stein knew that was completely impossible: everyone was always moving at all time. He heard a chuckle behind him and quickly spun around, seeing nothing. Stein let out a heavy sigh, and turned back around, seeing that Medusa was gone. "Of course, bitch." He murmured and went over to the pile of papers.

Absently, the man ran his thumb through them, in a lazy inspection. Then paused. He did it once more, and stopped when he got at a certain page. He pulled it out and right when he saw it, he ripped it up. It was the hypothesis data page. It was in perfect order. Actually, all his pages were in perfect order and neat and tidy as if no one had touched them. But someone had, right? Medusa went through his stuff and gave him feedback. He closed his sleep-deprived eyes tightly, his hand that held the paper turning into a fist and ruining the crisp sheet. Stein let the item drop from his hand and then left the room. His oldest question came back: Is She Really Dead? But it was replaced by a new one: "Is She Really Real?". Was it even a She? An It? Was it himself? He felt his sanity slipping, remembering the events. He had touched her, and in more ways then one. It felt so real. It had to be real. He shook his head. Reality is defined in your head- had he imagined his own reality? And then it came: the split memories.

He remembered spending time with Medusa but then he also remembered just being by himself, doing research on his computer. He grit his death. Stein quickly went to his computer, checking files and documents. He checked when he had last saved them. His latest was saved at 5:28 AM today, and Stein could swear that at that time him and Medusa had been... "Damnit!" The man shouted, quickly turning his screw to calm himself. What was the truth? "Medusa... what are you doing to me?" Stein said aloud, knowing he would receive no answer. Little could he assume, and if he had imagination, he would have realized that tomorrow would be his doom.

...


End file.
